


Part Two of the Zombie Apocalypse

by lazy_dork



Series: rise of the zombie apocalypse, an ROTBTFD AU [2]
Category: Brave (2012), Frozen (2013), How to Train Your Dragon (Movies), Rise of the Guardians (2012), Tangled (2010)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Zombie Apocalypse
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-10-17
Updated: 2015-04-28
Packaged: 2018-02-21 11:28:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 8
Words: 14,404
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2466572
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lazy_dork/pseuds/lazy_dork
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>5 years after the whole Zombie Apocalypse started and living on Berk, the crew of misfits face difficulties living in the new post-apocalyptic world.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. HICCUP pov

"Happy Birthday!” shouted a familiar chorus of voices and one jumped on the bed, I groggily rubbed the sleep out of my eyes and stared up into Astrid’s eyes inches from mine. “Thanks,” I mumble, shifting into a more comfortable position. Astrid withdrew off of the double bed and Jack gave me a massive hug. “Happy Birthday, darling!”

“Thanks, again.” Not being absolutely sure if I liked waking up to my friends and dragon standing around me, shouting birthday wishes and giving me a present. “Here,” Astrid sat down next to me and handed me a small box. “Wow,” I picked it up and ripped off the makeshift brown paper. To reveal a cardboard box, I stared at it for a moment. “Come on, open it!” Rapunzel urged, I did. There, sitting in a mound of tissue paper was a small beaten up dragon toy. “I remember this.” I held it in my hands, it easily fit into my palms.

“Well of course you do!” says Merida, “You remember that time when you were little and you came to visit and you left it at my place and completely forgot about it?”

“Yes? But h-how did you get it?”

“Turns out, it was in the bottom of the bag I brought here. We just wanted to give it to you on a special occasion and hey presto! Twentieth birthday is here!”

“Thanks guys!” I gave them all a hug, Toothless sprung up from his corner where he was sitting and tried to join in. It didn’t work, he broke the mugs we left on the window sill. “There,” I put it on my nightstand and sat on the edge of my bed to put my leg on so I could walk around. Five years and I had gone from the skinny and little one to the tallest in the group. I was still getting used to it to be honest.

Anna burst into the room, grinning from ear to ear. “The Son of the Chief’s breakfast is ready!” and she brought in a tray of pancakes. We had adopted the name of the ‘Base Leader’ to ‘Chief’ on the military base in Minnesota that I called Berk. It caught on, like lots of other things like Snoggletog. I sat back down on the bed while everyone began pick up a bowl of cereal or porridge and sat on the ground. Supplies were starting running low, it was a huge privilege to get pancakes for _breakfast_. All our food had recently been restricted to ‘basics’.

Since we were older, we no longer shared a room that was full of bunk beds. It was beginning to get claustrophobic. Astrid and I had our own, so did Elsa and Jack and Flynn and Rapunzel. Anna and Merida had their own. Being ‘Son of the Chief’ and having the only dragon so far in Berk, we got one with enough room for Toothless to sleep in and with a small balcony for him to fly from. It was rather good on Berk. Supplies, zombie and climate problems aside.

No one had really arrived here after we came five years ago, well except from some old school ‘buddies’; Snotlout, Fishlegs and the twins Ruff and Tuff and a host of others who of course, we didn’t know. It’s great having the others around, when they’re not trying to cause damage and make my Dad mad. From then, we just assumed and deduced from the stories recent survivors told, everyone around us was alive or remotely able to make it here because of the zombies crowding the country. The people who came in later and later, had come further than any of us and looked like they’d been through a lot more.

Every few weeks a whole group of zombies would come down on Berk, we think the amount of energy we release and people in one place attracts them. But soon enough, we kill them and life carries on. I usually fix cars and guns with Gobber, occasionally argue with Dad about helping him run the place.

The phone that sat on my dock beeped, I leaned over from eating and checked it. It was a text from dad. “Uh guys, my Dad wants us to meet him just after lunch later on today.” I say, I returned to eating my last pancake. “What does he want?” Astrid asked,

“He didn’t say.”

“I hope it means we can kill some more zombies,” Jack muffled through a mouthful of porridge.

“Yeah!” joined Flynn,

“The fun of it wears off after a little while.” Said Merida,

“Well, fun aside, we better get to work then.” Anna checked her watch got up and took the empty plates with Elsa’s help. They left to go down to the kitchens. Rapunzel had already brought her scrubs so she could go straight to the medical ward from here. She hoisted them over her shoulder and said ‘goodbye’ and gave Flynn a peck on the cheek. I wasn’t going to get one, so I just waved.

Astrid shrugged on her relatively new army jacket over her black tank top, unlike the old black ones we used to have this one was blood red. Apparently it symbolised those we lost since this whole epidemic started. Deep. Jack was old fashioned and still wore a slightly tattered black one over a relatively new blue jumper. I could swear those things seemed to find him. Merida and Flynn followed the suit of the red ones like everyone else.

“We better go too,” said Merida, picking up her bow.

“I guess you’re right, don’t get into trouble now will you?” said Astrid, giving me a kiss goodbye.

“When am I not in trouble?” she glared at me sarcastically, “Don’t answer that, I’ll see ya later!” they left and their giggling faded down the outside corridor. Leaving only me, Flynn and Jack. “What are you going to do while you wait for you spooky night shift?”

“Wreak havoc with the twins.” Jack grinned,

“Really?”

“Oh yes, you have no idea what we have in stall for you lot.”

“Just don’t do anything that will make my dad mad, we don’t want a repeat of Easter last year.” I got and walked into the ensuite to wash my face.

“So we froze a few water pipes.”

“ _Jack,”_

“I’ll keep ‘em under control.” Volunteered Flynn with a cheesy grin. I splashed some cold water on my face and grabbed a towel, “Oh that’s much better.” I said, walking out feeling slightly refreshed. “You guys do know whatever you do reflects on me which then reflects on my father, right?” they nodded quickly, Toothless’s head shot up and he looked a little bit puzzled from his corner, “Not you. You’re fine, Bud.” He very looked pleased with himself and rested his head back down.

Flynn and Jack left after five minutes of repeatedly promising to not cause trouble. I still didn’t believe them. I got ready and put on my new jacket I just finished, it was a black leather one with a Viking skull on the right shoulder. I made all these pockets for bits and pieces I might need even a small notebook. I put on my arm guards, the left one had the knife I always had on it.

I walked out onto the balcony, and sat on Toothless’s back where I and held onto the saddle. He happily shot up and did a lap of Berk. It was still the same place as when we arrived, just more stable due to less tents in the outer areas. Feeling the wind in my hair was the best part. We landed back down in the Central Plaza and went to the garage, Toothless followed me wherever I went I liked that.

“Good morning!” greeted Gobber, from underneath a standard black Jeep.

“Uh, hey Gobber.”

“Happy Birthday!”

“Thanks. Do you know why my Dad wants us to meet him after lunch?”

“I have a clue, but I don’t want teh spoil any _surprises.”_

“What kind of surprises?” I said,

“Nothing that special, that’s for sure.” 

“Sounds absolutely riveting. I can’t wait.”

My new workshop was slightly bigger than the corner I used to have it had more instruments and tools too, Toothless could happily sit just outside and keep me company while I worked. My main job at the moment was repairing weapons and machine parts. I had rifles and guns scattered at the corners of the bench, waiting to be attended to.

I sat down and picked up a disassembled sword I was making. I called it ‘Inferno’ because it had a long blade that shrank into the handle where it would coat in oil and when sparked it would burst into flames. I had almost lost my eyebrows when coming up with ideas for it. I figured it was my ideal weapon to kill zombies, decapitating and burning at the same time. Pretty cool.

After finishing the assembly of it, I was finally ready to try it. I stood back from anything in the centre of the workshop, flicked out the blade and sparked it. The metal erupted into lava like flames Toothless looked at it with a mixture of wonder and pity in his eyes. As if he was impressed but sad that the rest of us had to make things to create fire. “You can fire plasma, I can’t, Bud.” He gave a nod, as if to say ‘ _and don’t you forget it’_.

I was beginning to run low on oil to make capsules for the blade. “Gobber?” I ask,

“Yeh?” he stuck his head over the side of the truck we called Big Bertha because of her immense size, “Where would I find some spare oil?”

“Well there isn’t much left, but there might be some for yeh at the back of the garage in a filing cupboard. I wouldn’t get my hopes up though,”

“Thanks,” Toothless followed me to the back of the garage through the rows of endless cars and motorcycles, stands between them with spare parts and guns on them. And sure enough, there was a steel filing cabinet at the back. After rummaging around the top shelf I found a small tank of oil.

“This oughta’ do it, Bud.” I turned to head back but I noticed that Toothless was sniffing the corner of the wall, curiosity got the better of me and I pulled it. It was stuck at first but after a bit more of a tug the door slid open. I walked into a very dim cavern. I could feel something was in there. I widened the door for Toothless to get through.

The motion must have triggered the lights because a few seconds later, we were standing among hundreds of one man flight pods. All of them were identical.

They stood on individual frames that were about four metres high that had ladders leading up to them and they had two short wings with criss-crossing blades in the centre of the wings when the driver sat between them with a glass screen of them that lifted for them to get in and out. They had to be about three or four metres across. Very compact and very durable.  

“What are these?” I asked myself and partly Toothless. He looked just as puzzled as I did. I climbed the ladder up to one and looked at the cockpit, it could only fit one person. I knocked on the metal, it made my knuckles hurt a lot, I ignored it and shook it off. They were really hard, they had to be made out of Iron or maybe basic metallurgy 101, the hardest metal known.  My watch started to beep, it was time for me to meet Dad about whatever he wanted to talk about. That had to wait.

I ran out to the main garage with Toothless and to Gobber, “Shouldn’t yeh be meetin’ with your father?” he asked,

“What are those things in the hidden hanger?” I gasped, catching my breath from running. Gobber, looked slightly puzzled and like he’d just been busted for a big secret. “How did yeh find them?”

“Toothless found the handle for the door.” Gobber looked at Toothless who began to look guilty. “What’s going on and why aren’t we using them?”

“Listen carefully Hiccup,” Gobber began gravelly, “What is behind that wall is not important, there are some things you can’t go digging into you don’t want to go and dig up some graves.” He began to walk off, I stopped him. “Wha-? Digging up graves? What aren’t you telling me?”

“Hiccup don’t look into this one, trust me. I know you’ve always wanted answers since you were little, that’s a good thing. Just, not this time.”

“At least tell me why,”

“Because you’ll be getting yours, all of your friends and our lives on the line.” He almost snapped, I stared at him. I was shocked that this place had secrets, I liked that it didn’t have any. I was wrong, apparently. “Okay, I’ll just go.”

I left Gobber to his work and left the garage and went to the control room where Dad was likely to be. “You’re late,” was the response to my entrance to the room.

“Sorry Dad,” I mumble, everyone else was there, even the twins, Snotlout and Fishlegs. Which was puzzling. I took the seat next to Astrid.

“Are you ok, you look a little rattled?” she whispered.

“I’m fine.” I kind of lied.

“Ok, I have a bit of a task for you lot. This afternoon, you’ll need to leave Berk and go into Saint Paul and get some supplies from the markets.” He pointed to a map of the state and the highlighted routes we could take and begun a bit of a speech about where it would be safest to go and discussing the time management to get to the capital. I was sure that at least half of the crew didn’t care about safety. They just wanted to blow something up, which turned out to be great for anger management. After talking to Gobber about the pods, blowing something up sounded kind of good.

“Awesome!” hi-fived the twins at the end, with their usual snigger. Dad rolled his eyes, I hated to think what they were planning.

“You can take Big Bertha, Toothless, a few bikes, whatever you need.” I tuned into my father saying. We nodded. “When do we leave?” I ask,

“Tonight.”

“Great!” Said Jack, rubbing his hands together excitedly. “It’s about time we had another road trip.”

“Well since I can’t remember the last one, it should be much better this time around.” I mutter, Astrid glared at me, she looked at me a little bit worried. I had to admit I was probably acting rather strangely. She obviously remembered the last one and didn’t care to recount it for me. “Yeah,” added Snotlout, “I call driving Big Bertha!”

Jack, Flynn and the twins let out a simultaneous sigh of jealousy. Admittedly, Snotlout was a fairly good driver, he was just a little reckless most of the time. After the meeting, Astrid and I walked back up to our room to get our things. We were only going to be away for a few days so we wouldn’t a lot, everything I packed fitted into my backpack. Deciding that I might need Inferno, I reluctantly went back down to the garage.

Gobber gave me a bit of a curious stare when I walked back in and towards my workshop. “Excited about your little trip?”

“Oh yeah, should be fun. Listen, I’m sorry about before. I shouldn’t have snooped.”

“Ehh, don’t worry about it. You were going to find it sometime. What’s that fancy little contraption you’ve made there?” he gestured toward Inferno.

“Oh, my new sword. It has a blade that is coated in oil and bursts into flames. Cool huh?”

“Very nice, we could probably have a few more of ‘em ‘round here.”

“You think so?”

“Sure burning the dead bastards would go down a treat. The good old ‘double tap’, eh? Anyway, better get going. You need to leave in a couple o’ hours.”

“Thanks, Gobber. I’ll see you soon.” We shook hands and as I turned to leave, he gave me a solemn pat on the back. That was the closest thing you could get to a hug with him. With Toothless’s saddle all prepared and stocked up and all the trucks and bikes ready to go, we left Berk.


	2. JACK'S POV

“What kind of music shall we play?” I asked, the sun was setting over the burnt and desolate horizon. We had barely left Berk in years. It was scary to actually see the outside world for the first time in ages, it was so dead. Part of me just wanted to go back to Berk, the other part kind of wanted to see if there _was_ anyone else out there. Apparently we had heard people reaching out to others, but before we could try and help them they were attacked and we didn’t hear anything else. No one really talked about it anymore. It was too depressing.

“Fall out Boy?” suggested Merida over the radio,

“Sure thing.” I put the album _Save Rock and Roll_ and turned it up to full blast. Astrid kicked Snotlout out of the driver’s seat of Big Bertha after he nearly ran into a tree. I just sat in the passenger seat with my hands behind my head and relaxing. I stared up at Toothless through the bullet-proof window, I wondered if they could hear the music from up there.

I somehow felt a little safer with a dragon (who I was sure wasn’t going to attack me) watching out for zombies but at the same time I wanted to go all out and kill a few of those bastards just for what’s happened to the world. The sky grew darker with each passing moment. I noticed that Astrid’s knuckles were white in the cabin’s light, she was gripping the steering wheel way too hard.

“Something the matter?” I asked, Astrid instinctively relaxed,

“It’s nothing,”

“Well it can’t be ‘nothing’ if you look like you’re grinding your teeth and gripping whatever you’re hanging onto. You’re anxious.”

“Ah, how observant.”

“When you’re going out with Elsa you pick these things up, it’s an occupational hazard. So what is it?”

“I’m sorry, it’s just we’re back on a road trip and you know what happened on the last one, Hiccup can’t even remember it. He seemed really wound up at the meeting too, something’s wrong here. I can’t stop wondering what it is.”

“Well the guy does have a lot of pressure on him and I’m sure it’s going to be fine.”

“But we can’t be sure can we?” she had a point, we could never be sure of we were safe anymore. I think we had almost forgotten what ‘safe’ felt like. I looked at the clock on the dashboard, it was about 3am. “I think we should pull over at the next gas station, and if we’re attacked, I brought marshmallows.”

“You didn’t, how did you even _get_ those?”

“Stoick let us take what we needed and I was kinda hoping we could roast a few if we ended up burning any zombies.” She groaned and let her head fall back against the headrest.

I picked up the radio and told everyone that at the next gas station we were taking a stop. The twins, Flynn and Snotlout all seemed pretty keen on the marshmallows if need be. We stopped for a rest at about 4:30 in the morning, I jumped out of the truck and stretched my arms. Astrid let me take over about an hour ago, she needed sleep pretty desperately. I opened the passenger door and shook her arm, “Wake up, princess. We’ve stopped.”

She rubbed the sleep out of her eyes and got up to start unloading some things to eat. Hiccup and Toothless landed behind me, “How was it up there?” I asked,

“Cold, windy and I probably need a helmet. There’s a few zombies a couple of miles to the East, they might know we’re here soon enough. There’s some sort of compound about a league off, looks like some sort of explosion happened there. We can’t stay too long.”

“Good thing I brought the marshmallows then.” I cheered, rubbing my hands together.

“Wha-why would we need marshmallows?” Astrid shot me a death stare, strangely in the moment, I had forgotten that Hiccup had forgotten about the zombie bonfires. “What we did,” joined Flynn, putting his left arm around Hic’s shoulders, “Was when we killed a zombie, we set them on fire and used it to toast marshmallows.”

Hiccup looked slightly disgusted, “Ah, no thanks, I’m good.”

“Your loss,” I shrugged, Rapunzel boiled some water in the station’s disused kitchen which the twins were tasked with looking for mice in. They found two, both about a foot long. They came out holding them in each other’s faces. Most of the girls yelped and shouted at them to take the rodents away. Flynn and Snotlout checked the inside of the station for zombies, there weren’t any. Which was slightly disappointing considering that we more than ready for a bonfire.

Rapunzel and Anna later emerged from the kitchen with a whole heap of steaming quick noodles on plastic trays. “Dinner is ready,” they chorused, putting them down in the middle of our circle. Hic was busy getting a small tub of fish out for Toothless to eat. Toothless immediately stuck his head inside of the tub and began to eat contentedly.

“Does anyone have the barbeque sauce?” I asked, Tuff chucked it to me. I squeezed a little bit of it onto the noodles. “Ugh, Jack that’s gross.” Hiccup complained, sitting down next to me.

“What?”

“Better than yaknog,” I heard Snotlout mutter to the twins who sniggered.

“You want to try it? I have a new ingredient, cocoa.” Astrid said, “I have some in the back.”

“No thanks,” Hic patted her on the back. “We’ll save that for a really special occasion.” His tone was saying, ‘ _help back me up on this one, guys’_ none of us did. We all just busied ourselves with our noodles. She shrugged, “Fine.” But I could tell that she wasn’t that convinced and I held back a giggle.

We began to pack up after a bit of a rest, refuel and watching the sun start to come up. “You want me to drive Big Bertha this time?” asked Snotlout,

“No,” Astrid answered starkly.

“Shh, guys.” I heard Hiccup’s hushed voice say,

“You know what, Astrid? Maybe this time I won’t crash, if you don’t distract me. I could see that tree coming, there was no need to shout you know.”

“Shut it!” hiccup hissed again. He and toothless were looking around cautiously.

“What is it, h-“ I began to ask him, but I was cut off.

“Well maybe I wouldn’t have shouted at you if you weren’t heading for that goddamn tree!” Astrid shouted.

“I was _trying_ to read the goddam map!” he snapped.

“SHUT UP!” Hiccup yelled over the heated argument. We all stared at him, he didn’t usually shout. “What is it, _Hiccup?”_ Snotlout sneered.

Hiccup opened his mouth to answer, but he was cut short by a net being dropped on him and Toothless. “Hiccup!” Astrid gasped, running over to help him. I started to join her with the help of Anna and Elsa. A guy that was about 6’3 stood between us and Hiccup and Toothless. “Soil my britches that is a dragon, isn’t it? I don’t think Drago has one o’ them, in his army.” He spoke with a distinct British accent, Merida whipped her bow out faster than the speed of light. An arrow carefully aimed at the guy’s head.

Everyone stopped, except Ruff. She was behind us in the distance mumbling ‘Me likey’ and making weird faces. Maybe tall, British, large chinned, tall and well-built was her type. Fishlegs and Snotlout certainly weren’t making the cut in that case. They seemed like they were both fighting for her.

A gang of thugs emerged from the sides of the road, their guns, bows and swords pointed right at us. “So you’re the thieves who’ve been stealing from us, you don’t look like much.” He said,

“Wha? We’re not thieves!” struggled Hiccup.

“He’s right,” I added, “We haven’t left our base in like five years” as soon as I said it, I regretted it. Everyone stared at me, I should have stopped with ‘he’s right’. “What he means is,” covered Elsa, “Is that we haven’t done anything wrong, we didn’t even know you lot were out here. As far as we knew, we were the only ones left for hundreds of miles.” We all nodded.

“What do you want?” Merida asked darkly,

“We want to know why you lot attacked us last night and blasted our compound to bits!”

“What?” we all chorused, even Toothless in a weird kind of manner.

“You think we did that?” Hiccup asked.

“Zombie catching is hard enough as it is, without do good or armies killing ‘em all.”

“What did they attack you lot in?” Hiccup blurted out. Where was he going with this?

“Well you should know if you’re the one’s using one manned flight pods to destroy everything, how do you expect us to explain this mess to Drago Bludvist?”

“Dargo who? Does anything you say make sense? Zombie catching?”

“Well you would know if you were attacking us. We heard one person has become immune to the virus, the question is _how_?” Glances that meant we should all play it cool were exchanged among our group. Hiccup was the only known human to have the possibility to withstand becoming a zombie after being bitten, it cost him a freaking limb. “Pfft, immune. What does that even mean?” asked Tuff with a bit of a snigger, Snotlout laughed nervously too.

“That’s impossible!” added Rapunzel, “I work with injured people almost every day and I’ve never seen anyone survive a bite.”

“Well it must be possible,” the man argued,

“Look, we don’t know anything about ‘flight pods’ or this person who has super immunity. Just let us go and we won’t bother you again, or your weirdly named Boss and is army.” Hiccup said, “Strange hostile person whom we’ve never met.”

“Oh where are my manners? I’m Eret, Son of Eret. Finest Zombie catcher alive. Besides not anyone can find someone who can withstand a bite.” Toothless hissed violently.

“And this is toothless,” Hiccup added casually, “He says you should go, _now._ ”

“Ha! They all say that. Rush ‘em, lads!” at that moment, Eret’s thugs charged and everything almost instantly fell into chaos, I whipped my staff around and froze five of them in their tracks. Elsa did the same, Rapunzel was bashing a lot of them up with her saucepan. The twins were unstoppable, almost. Ruff was a little bit distracted by trying to get Eret’s attention. Fishlegs and Snotlout had retreated to a Jeep with a canon to hold some of them off. Anna and Flynn was using whatever he could find to bash some thugs over the head. I thought I saw Anna bash a few over the head with a ukulele, did we even have one of those?

I noticed Hiccup pull out a flaming sword and emerge from under the net with the help of Toothless and Astrid who now had her axe. Toothless was thrashing around with is tail and wings, tackling and hitting people out of the way. At one point I heard him roar in pain, but I was too busy to check if everything was all right.

Eret and his men were desperately trying to make sense of all the chaos. Eventually, they began to retreat. Leaving us alone in the flickering light of the gas station, gasping for breath. A dark stream of blood was seeping across the pavement, I turned to see Hiccup and Astrid, kneeling at Toothless’s tail. He had lost his left fin, it was sliced off clean. Rapunzel ran to get the first-aid kit, she came back a moment later, already unwrapping bandages.

 

 


	3. RAPUNZEL'S POV

“Get out of the way!” I almost shouted at Hiccup, setting up the first aid kit. He wouldn’t budge, “Astrid, help.” She knew what to do and hoisted a struggling Hiccup up and held him to one side.

“No!” he gasped, I realised how hard it must be for him to see Toothless in a lot of pain. He finally relaxed and I got to work on his tail. The left fin had been sliced clean off by the net, it was enough to make my stomach slightly queasy. “Anna, some help?” she joined while the others cleaned up the mess of the fight, which wasn’t much. We didn’t seriously injure anyone, just drove them off in the end. I was happy with that end result. We didn’t have a lot of fights with non-zombies.

Toothless seemed to know what do, which was to stay calm and not focus on the pain. Jack was trying to take his mind off of what was happening by playing a little game. Hiccup was trying to help, but none of us let him being too unstable. I noticed his right shoulder was dislocated, probably from the net, Astrid was trying to keep him calm. I taught Merida how to relocate joints, so she went to relocate it. Thankfully the only other injuries were small cuts that could be fixed with time and a band aid.

I started to try and bandage the gash, but it was bleeding too quickly. “I need to stitch this up. Fishlegs, can you pass me that wire and needle from the kit?” he did as I asked, he was a nice guy, really smart too he worked in the research labs on the hospital. “Thanks, I mutter, putting the needle between my lips and unravelling the wire. I thread the wire through the needle but when I started to work, I couldn’t it was still a little too dark. “Flynn can you get me that head torch and light,”

“Sure,” he sprang up from next to me and came back a moment later and put the torch on my head and held the other one where I instructed him to. When I made the first stitch, Toothless twitched a little. “Sorry, boy. But this might take a while.” I apologized. He made a small humming noise, I hoped that meant it was ok. As I worked, my long hair kept on falling into my eyes. Anna tried to help buy tucking the loose strands into the headband of the torch, it didn’t really work.

It took half an hour to do a satisfactory job of the stitches, by the time we finished we didn’t need the torches anymore. I had to do at least fifty of them, more than I had ever done, but then again I had never had to operate on a dragon.

I gave Toothless a pat on the head, “You did well.” He licked my face as a thankyou, “Now I know what Hiccup means by the smell,” I laughed, wiping the slobber from my face. He made a bit of a grin. “What now?” asked Jack.

“Well he definitely can’t fly by himself anymore,” Hiccup shifted the makeshift sling. He didn’t look comfortable. “I can try and make a prosthetic tail when we get back to Berk, until then. We still need to get the supplies my Dad sent us to get.”

“He’s right,” agreed Astrid, “Could Toothless sit on the back of Bertha?”

“He should be able to,” I said. Under Hiccup’s nagging for him to make an effort, Toothless jumped up onto the back of the truck and we were ready to go. “Thankyou by the way,” I heard Hiccup’s voice say from behind me as I began to re-braid my hair. “No problem, how’s your shoulder?”

“It’ll be fine.” I nodded and gave him a small pat on his unhurt shoulder and made my way back to the Jeep with Flynn, Anna and Elsa. They were in the backseat, looking at one of the maps that Stoick gave us with the routes drawn on it.

“Uh oh,” Elsa said,

“What is it?” I turned around. I face planted the head rest of the shotgun seat as Flynn accelerated,

“Sorry,” he laughed a little, I gave him a glare and turned to Elsa.

“We think we went off course.”  Anna pointed to the map, “See this is where we should be,” she pointed to a red line, then moved it to another road which was a little way from the symbol for government property “and this is where we are.”

“Maybe that’s why Stoick didn’t mark out this road,”

“Because he didn’t want us to go near that property, whatever it is.” Elsa finished,

“It’s like he knew.” Anna sat back in her seat,

“How did we end up off-course anyway?” I wondered, Flynn leant over to grab the radio. “Snotlout!” he almost yelled,

“Yes?” came his voice over the static,

“Thanks for getting us off-course, bro. We’re about a mile off now.”

“What? Why blame me?”

“You were leading us for the first few miles, when we took the wrong turn according to the map.” Anna joined. “Whoops,” said his voice hesitantly.

“Way to go!” said Tuff’s voice from within their cabin, “Even _I_ could direct the group better than that!”

“Please, you don’t even know which way’s east.” Droned Fishlegs’s voice, we heard Ruff sniggering. Flynn was too, putting the radio back on its hook. “What? He actually doesn’t,” he shrugged.

“Shouldn’t we tell the others about the route thing?” Anna asked after a while of silence and listening to the twins fight about which way _was_ east (which was dead ahead). We were behind Big Bertha, the twins, Snotlout and Fishlegs behind us and Merida and Jack behind them in our Congo Line of vehicles. “Maybe at the next rest stop,” Anna suggested. At that moment, Astrid’s voice cut in over the radio.

“So where do we go now? We’ve been looking at the map and we’re all ears.”

“Women and their directions,” I heard Flynn joke.

“Well,” Anna picked the radio up. “We should be coming to an exit on our left, in a few miles. That should get us back on track. And Fishlegs and the others _should_ be following us, you guys catch that?”

“Loud and clear,” came Ruff’s voice. That was the best we were probably going to get.

“So why wasn’t this route marked out? It looks like it’ll get us there quick enough.” Came Hiccup’s voice, “Elsa took the radio from Anna, you see the symbol for a government compound by the highway we’re on?”

“Yeah,”

“That’s probably why,”

“You mean to say that my Dad didn’t want us going near that place for a reason?”

“We don’t know, but I’m sure he had his reasons,”

“Well he better, it’s not like him to not tell us something. I remember him saying something about staying away from some places when talking about the routes. He should have his reasons, I’ll add it the pile of things to do when we get back.”

A few snowflakes started falling through the air, I could see Toothless trying to catch them in his mouth from the back of the truck. He looked relatively happy just watching the weather and the world go by. A little later, I saw Jack launch off of the roof of his Jeep, probably to have a look ahead for any sign of Eret or trouble. Maybe he just wanted to clear his head.

He glided over to the back of Big Bertha, I could faintly see him give Toothless a pat on the head then raised a finger to his lips. I instantly knew what he was playing at, but I didn’t want to be a party pooper. “Flynn slow down a little.” Elsa instructed,

“Why?”

“Jack’s playing a prank and so we don’t rear-end the truck I think it would be a good idea.”

“Fine,” the Jeep slowed and I watched Jack creep to the top of Bertha’s cabin and stick his head through the sun roof. As if on cue, the truck went a little bit wonky on the road and we heard some swearing come from over the radio. “Jack, you fucking imbecile!” we heard Astrid shout, we all burst out laughing. “Not cool, bro.” Hiccup added, but he didn’t care.

“What? I was bored, and Toothless says ‘hi’.”

“Thanks for the update and how about we play ‘I Spy’ or something like some normal people?”

“Fine, oh look your radio’s on!” we heard Jack say, “The whole crew can hear us. _Good morning children, the earth says ‘hello’!”_

Ours and the other Jeeps erupted with laughter. “Yep, we pretty much heard and saw the whole thing.” Flynn added,

“Yes, very amusing Frost,” said Merida’s voice, “Maybe come back to the Jeep now?”

“Yes mother!” Jack shot up into the air and landed on the Jeep behind us.

“Anyone hungry?” asked Flynn, holding up a packet of cookies.

“Uh, where did you get them?” Anna asked,

“Gas station, it was remarkably well preserved in there. They taste fine by the way, we tried them.”

“What else did you get?” Elsa took one,

“A few more packets of the same cookies, all the milk and stuff that had short due dates were of course, not worth saving. Some more noodles, hot chocolate powder, pasta, canned assortments, oh and this hat!” Flynn reached under his seat and pulled out a ridiculous looking hat that had the head of a fox on the front and a tail at the back. He put it on his head and looked like a complete idiot with a sheepish grin.

“Why a fox?” I laughed,

“Because no one can catch the motherfucking fox! We also got a raccoon one for Hiccup, as a gift. Snotlout found a rhino one, I can see him wearing it from the mirror.”

“So you did read _Looking for Alaska!_ ” I said, as I looked back to the car behind us. And sure enough, Snotlout was sitting in the passenger seat with a rhinoceros hat on his head. 

“I may not be Haddock or Frost but I’m not the worst boyfriend in the world, you know.”


	4. Merida's POV

The sky was beginning to dim again, Jack took over control of the Jeep at our lunch break which happened at about mid-afternoon. I sat in the back seat, re-sharpening my arrows and adjusting my bow. There really wasn’t much else to do. It made me agitated, I was one of those people who couldn’t sit still. My mind began to drift off to my family, they were still overseas.

About a month ago, we heard from them again. They were coming back and going to go help out at Berk. I could barely contain my excitement. What did my brothers Hamish, Hubert and Harris look like now? Probably a bit like dad. They would definitely get along with Ruff and Tuff, to be honest I was a little worried about the damage they could do.

“Hungry?” came Jack’s voice, snapping me out of my thoughts.

“I could eat, what do we have?”

“Cookies,” he passed a plastic packet of mass produced cookies,

“Thanks.” I took two and ate them.

“Whatcha thinkin’ about? You’re muttering.”

“I don’t mutter, I’m not my mum.”

“Fine whatever you say, Mer. What is it?”

“Why do you want to know?”

“Conversation. Seriously, this quiet is killing me.”

“Just how my folks are coming back.”

“Scary, huh?”

“Nah, just exciting.”

“Could you tell me about them?”

“What?”

“Tell me about your family. I had one once I just don’t really remember what it’s like.”

“You have us,” I said, trying to comfort him. I wasn’t that good at comforting people, it was usually Rapunzel, Anna and sometimes Astrid’s job but they weren’t here. “Well I’ve got three triplets for brothers, they can cause just as much trouble as the twins. Then you’ve got my father, just as big and red headed as Stoick maybe a little more laid back. They are actually good friends, they worked together for a while before all of this happened. My father, Fergus, lost his leg on like my fourth birthday in a bear attack, I still remember it. They story of how he fought off the bear is legend back at home in Scotland. Then you have my mother, she is the kind of mother you would be lucky to have, I guess. Up until I was about to turn 16, she was dead set on me growing up and well, becoming her. So we had a bit of a fight, ending in a mutual understanding. Dad was really funny, he didn’t know what to think.” I let out a small laugh just remembering his facial expression.

“When did you move to America?” Jack asked,

“When I was ten.”

“Do you miss Scotland?”

“I little, America can be so restricting sometimes. No archery unless you’re under supervision in a training centre, no horse riding down a quiet street-“ I stopped, suddenly remembering my horse Angus, I just left him five years ago. I wondered if he was still alive. It wasn’t the first time I had remembered him, but it still hurt. He was my best friend, like Hiccup had Toothless.

“You had a horse?” asked Jack

“Yeah, he was a black Scottish Clydesdale called Angus.”

“That sounds awesome,”

“Yeah it was.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Yeah me too. I should never have left him.”

“He could still be alive for all we know and there was nothing we could have done, all we could think about was surviving. No one can blame you or any of us for that matter.”

“Thanks, Jack. Anyway, that’s enough of me; what about you? What’s your story? Before all of this,”

“Not much to tell, I was a bit of a village idiot as you could have guessed. I grew up in Burgess, great place too it isn’t far from where we all lived. I can barely remember it after I woke up on the pavement a few years ago, no memory whatsoever. I remember it was snowing and it was dark, cold and I had never been more scared. I can’t recall anything else, not even my own family.”

“That’s horrible.” I said, no wonder he never talked about his childhood, he never had one. It explained so much, he just wanted to have the years he lost back.  

“Eh, it’s not all bad, this guy who we called North who basically reminds me of Santa took me in and I was put in a really nice orphanage which is where I met Flynn. He was great with the younger kids, always telling them stories at dinner or just whenever. So we gradually became friends, caused some trouble and helped a little in the home and went to the same high school where we met Hic, Punz and Astrid, and one thing led to another and here we are. How did you and Hic meet?”

“Oh yeah, that was when we were about ten after we moved here. Our fathers started working together and we just ended catching up almost every day. I remember a time when Astrid completely ignored him.”

“What? Now I can’t picture them without each other how did he score Hofferson?”

“You can ask him that because I don’t really know,” I admitted,

“All I can guess is that he’s going to say ‘Haddock Charm’.”

“Haddock what?”

“Haddock Charm, funny story actually. You remember when I was trying to score Elsa all those years ago?”

“How could I forget?” I laughed, he acted so weirdly then, like watching a dog walk on its hind legs.

“Well I asked Hiccup for advice because Flynn’s didn’t work and all he could say was ‘Haddock Charm’ the real you and the inner dork.”

“That’s actually not too bad as far as advice goes. It’s great when guys man-up and just be themselves. Acting cool doesn’t work, believe me.”

“Thanks for the advice, so tell me about this ‘legend of daddy vs bear’.”

“You sure you want to hear it?”

“Of course, anything to pass the timey-wimey.”

“The what?”

“Haddock got me into Doctor Who.”

I laughed, “How did he manage that?”

“I’m not sure. Come to think of it, that guy can do just about anything. So back to your story, how about a little entertainment for the driver?”

“Fine, we went into the local forest for my birthday lunch, just the three of us. That day I got my first bow that day, my dad let me practice with it, but being a little kid I missed of course.”

“What? You miss a target? That’s like impossible!”

“Shut up and listen to the story. The arrow flew into the forest behind the target and mum told I could go get it. So I did, I found the arrow in almost no time then something appeared among the trees, a wisp appeared so I followed it-“

“Wait,” Jack cut me off, “What the hell are wisps?”

“Little spirits that look like little blue lights, they say they lead you to your fate. And they kind of do. Anyway, they led me out of the forest and back to my parents. Then when we were just about to head back home, a great black bear appeared. It towered above us, I screamed I can still remember its scarred face and one dead eye.” I shivered at the thought, “we called him Mor’du, my Dad yelled at us to get out of the way and he took on the bear with the help of a few of his friends while my mum and I rode away.”

“What about your dad’s side of the story?” Jack asked, “I mean yours is great in its own way, but what did he say to everyone about the bear attack?”

“Oh, I have that memorised he’s told it so many times. I thought the wisps were a good part so I decided to include it.” I cleared my throat to impersonate my dad’s voice really deep and genuine. “I saw something that day, something I’ll not forget.” Jack laughed at my authentic voice and encouraged me to go on. “It stood 12-feet high, its’ face scarred with one dead eye. I drew my sword and CHOMP, my leg was clean-off! Down the monster’s throat it went. Mor’du has never been seen since, but he’s out there in the wilds waiting his chance of revenge!”

Jack paused for a moment, probably taking the story in. “That was… Great! Really, Merida.”

“Thanks.” I smiled,

“How come you never told us that story before?”

I shook my head, “I don’t know.” Then it occurred to me, I missed them beyond being able to think about them. The road moved beneath us like a treadmill as we just kept on driving. Jack asked me to take over the wheel while he did a check from the sky. “Ok, no pranks this time.” I warned.

“Fine.” He shot into the sky and I was alone again. The rain was just beginning to spray on the screen like ash. Just thinking of my family brought tears to my eyes. They slowly ran down my face, I realised what I said to Jack also applied to me. I did have a family, they were all around me. Sure, we were misfits but aren’t we all?


	5. JACK'S POV

Of course the area was all clear there was nothing to be seen, aside from the fact that the night greatly reduced visibility. The feeling of gliding through the air was something I really loved, it never got old. My thoughts kept on wandering what Merida had said, her story and her whole family seemed like she had a lot to look forward to when they came back.

I landed on the back of our Jeep and climbed into the passenger seat through the sun roof. “Anything?” she asked,

“Nothing except for a few cars and a dragon.”

“Where did they come from?” she asked, her voice thick with sarcasm.

“No idea, where do you think I could get a dragon?”

“I don’t know.”

Astrid’s voice came from over the radio, “Something out there, Jack?”

“Nothing.” I replied,

“That’s how we like it. We should reach the capital at dawn the rate we’re going, everyone.” We heard everyone cheer.

“That’s good because my butt is getting real sore.” Said Tuff,

“No one needs to know.” We heard Fishlegs say.

“Fishlegs has got a point,” said Hic’s voice, “we don’t need to know about your butt.”

“You’re right, Hiccup,” replied Ruff, “everyone should be a part of this conversation. What kind of physical pain has being cooped up in a car caused you over the past couple of days?”

“All good in the last Jeep.” I commented,

“Are we really going to discuss this?” asked Hiccup’s voice.

“Apparently.” Joined Flynn. The conversation went on, talking about various problems caused by long periods of time spent travelling by car; from stunted to growth to constipation. Both of which could probably count as legitimate problems.

“Do you want me to drive now?” I asked Merida, just as the clock on the dial struck three am.

“Yeah, I’m beginning to get a little drowsy.” She agreed, we let the others know what we were doing and quickly jumped out into the developing storm outside. “Consider yourself lucky.” She said as we hopped back into the car.

“Why?”

“You don’t feel the cold.”

“Yeah I suppose that is pretty great.” I laughed smugly and started the engine and caught up with the others. Merida fell asleep in her seat and sure enough a city began to emerge from the horizon, just as the sun was beginning to rise. There were zombies walking through the streets like the city of the dead. We instinctively knew what to do. Drive. I ran into several of them, when one hit Merida’s window, she snapped awake.

“What?” she tried to sit forward but the seatbelt restrained her.

“Welcome to St. Paul!” I cheered in my best tour guide voice,

“It’s great,” she looked around, beginning to calm down, “what about Toothless?” we sat up straighter to get a better view of Big Bertha. He stood on the back of the truck, endlessly firing plasma at the zombies, probably killing ten at once.

“He’s fine, just probably going to last much longer by himself.”  

“Where do we go?” asked Flynn over the radio.

“I dunno, but it’s away from here.” Fishlegs replied.

“I’m going to help Toothless.” I told Merida, standing up through the sunroof and whacking a zombie away with my staff and freezing like twenty. I grinned at my small triumph,

“Be careful!” she said,

“When am I not?” she just looked at me, “You’re right, don’t answer that.”

I glided over to Toothless, “Hey boy!” I patted him on the head. We continued to hit Zombies away until we were out of the city centre and we were sure that nothing would attack us. Elsa suggested that we find a small suburban house to lay low on, rest and in the morning, collect the food then the day after that we would be on our way home.

No one disagreed, the main problem was finding a house that everyone would be happy with. We finally agreed on a small campsite with dorms and everything. It was really run down, but the smell wasn’t too bad. Most of the rooms were overgrown with vines and various things that probably had a fancy Latin name. We chose the best dorm and cleaned it so we could spend at least a night in it without getting infected by something.

It reminded me of the room we first had when we arrived in Berk, however it was roomier which was kind of needed. Maybe about four times bigger and with seven bunk beds which was more than enough to house twelve people and a dragon.

Anna and Rapunzel were on cooking duty again, Snotlout and Flynn went with them in case of an attack. They walked off to the mutual stoves to go and cook some much needed food that wasn’t out of a packet.

Elsa and I spent our free time after helping the others on the roof and watching the sun set, just quietly playing with snow. “How was your drive?” I asked, trying to make conversation.

Elsa shrugged, “Uneventful.” She spun a snowflake around her hand musingly. “Nice scare on Hiccup and Astrid by the way.”

“Thanks.” I laughed, creating a bunny rabbit that hopped around us, “I think Haddock nearly shat himself.”

“Just go easy on him, ok?”

“What do you mean?” the bunny dissipated, into icy mist.

“Well he’s got a lot of pressure on him and he’s trying really hard to keep it together.”

“I know, I just thought it might be fun to have a bit of a laugh.” I mumbled, busying myself with my nails.

“I know that, just don’t push him to the breaking point.”

“I promise.”

“Hey!” we heard Anna’s voice call from below us, we leant over the edge of the roof to look down to her,

“Yes?” we asked in unison.

“Dinner’s ready.” She walked back inside through the door directly below us. I swiftly landed on the ground and helped Elsa down.

We walked into the dorm holding hands. They all sat in a circle in the centre of the room with Toothless lying around some of the perimeter and dozing contentedly. I gave him a pat on the head as Elsa and I sat down next to Hiccup and Astrid with a plate of steaming hot chicken and chips.  

Anna had found a packet of ‘ice-breakers’ cards in the kitchen, I almost loathed those things, but we had nothing better to do, so we played. It was Astrid’s turn to pull a card out, “Ooh, this is a good one: which house at Hogwarts would you be in? I think I might be a Gryffindor,”

“Ravenpuff for me.” Hiccup answered, putting his bowl down and lying back.

“Ravenpuff?” I asked,

“Yeah Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw, I don’t know.”

“Fine, then its Slytherdor for me.”

“Slytherin.” Elsa answered,

“Well in that case, Slytherin for me.” I interrupted, Elsa laughed a little.

“Gryffindor.” Merida sighed, looking bored,

“SLYTHERIN!” the twins and Snotlout chorused with a triple hi-five.

“Definitely Ravenclaw for me.” Fishlegs contributed, with an exasperated look at the twins.

“Same as what Jack said at first,” said Flynn, “Slytherdor.”

“Same as Hiccup, I think for me,” Said Punz, “probably Ravenpuff.”

“I think I’m going to bring in a new one and say Gryffinpuff.” Finished Anna.

Then it was Hiccup’s turn to pick a card, “What is your favourite element? I don’t know, maybe earth or fire. Maybe leaning towards fire because I have a dragon, right bud?” Toothless opened one eye and chuckled.

“Air or water for me.” I answered through my last mouthful of food,

“Water.” Elsa said happily,

“Eh, earth or fire. It doesn’t really matter to me.” Merida replied,

“EARTH!” the twins hi-fived again, Snotlout, Fishlegs and Flynn passed, they didn’t really know.

“Air probably.” Rapunzel said, getting the trend of answering the question going again.

“Air or fire maybe, not sure either.” Anna answered.

“Dunno.” Shrugged Astrid. Now it was my turn to pick the card.

“Ok, how about this one? ‘You have just been approached by Professor X. himself he asks for your help, what mutant power would/do you have?’” I paused, “Well I think that’s quite obvious for me, Elsa?”

“Same.”

“Super speed so I could shoot arrows faster.” Merida replied, showing a bit of a smile.

“Is that possible? You’re like lightning already!” I answered her, she threw a musty pillow at me with a laugh.

“Invisibility.” Said Tuff, Ruff agreed.

“Really? Wh-why’s that?” asked Hiccup, he sounded a little scared to know the answer.

“So we can avoid the chief and have the most fun at the same time!” added Ruff.

“Or, the ability to turn into a fire-breathing lizard at will.” Tuff said in a darker voice, Toothless looked at him derisively, “No not like Toothless, sorry. But almost like Frankenstein’s monster, you know.”

“Anyway, I would probably choose super strength!” Snotlout flexed his biceps, I thought I heard Astrid puke in her mouth a little bit.

“100% brain capacity.” Fishlegs held his finger up in the air like he did whenever he was explaining something or merely stating a fact or opinion.

“Super good-looks.” Flynn lay back, “but then again I already have that, born with it.”

“Super healing!” Rapunzel said, she looked like she had been itching to get that answer out.

“Can’t you already do that?” Flynn asked, looking up at her.

“To a degree, yes, but wouldn’t it be great if you know; you could cure anything?”

“Not bad, Punz. How about durability, the strength and adaption to survive?” Anna suggested,

“Hmmm,” Astrid thought, “Telepathy? I mean it would be great to know just what your enemy’s about to do and then you can take ‘em out like that!” she snapped her fingers, indicating an instant.

“I know what I’d like; the ability to speak to animals!” Hiccup finished off, “I mean they would be so interesting to talk to and Toothless could talk to me, eh bud?” Toothless gave Hiccup a big lick on the face, I’ve had one of those. It was disgusting.

We spent the rest of the night playing random games and joking around. Just before it was going to get completely dark we snuck out to find a liquor store. Hiccup took some convincing but in the end, he tagged along.

“Ok,” I hissed to the twins, “You two distract the zombies and we’ll get all the good liquor we can, make sure you lose them before making it back to the dorm in precisely half an hour where Toothless and Fishlegs will be watching in case of trouble.”

They nodded with a snigger. The girls took watch on the store’s roof and the rest of us went inside to find us some alcohol. “This reminds me of that time in sophomore year when we pretended to be eighteen and scored a case of beer from the store.” I said to Flynn who was adjusting a silly looking fox hat on his head.

“Oh yeah! That was fun.” He laughed,

“You guys actually did that?” Hiccup asked,

“Yep.” We chorused,

“But you were barely 15!”

“Absolutely.” Flynn agreed,

“You see, Hic,” I slung an arm around Hiccup’s shoulder, “When you’re old and frail and sitting around with your lady friend, Astrid who you’ve finally married, you’ll regret all those wacky things you didn’t do as a lively youth.”

“Uhhh.” He paused,

“Hey where did you get that hat?” I asked Flynn,

“The gas station we stopped at.”

“I need to get one.” I jumped over the counter where the souvenirs rack was and found a snowman one it fitted on my head perfectly. I noticed another one at the bottom of the rack, I picked it up and threw it to Hiccup who just caught it. He looked at it in the light of his head torch and then just looked at me, eyebrows raised.

“Really, a Haddock?”

“Yep, I think it suits you, put it on.”

“Fine.” He put it on his head, “So?”

“It’s something your dad should wear probably. How about this one, I threw another one from the top of the rack, it was a Viking helmet snapback with horns on either side. It was really cool. Haddock tried it on and grinned at me.

“I like this one.”

“We’ll keep the Haddock for your father.”

“Oh yeah, he’ll love that.”

“Hey guys, if you want to get back to finding some drinks; I found some champagne out here and it looks all right!” cooed Snotlout who incidentally was wearing a rhino one, probably from where Flynn had gotten his.

“Nice find, bro.” Flynn picked up a bottle,

“Ok, everyone, pick up a crate and let’s take these bad boys back!” I said excitedly.

We spent the next few minutes shining our lights through the webbed store and emerged with 5 bottles of champagne, 3 cases of beer, 10 bottles of wine and 5 of the most expensive scotches and whiskies in the store one of which was about $2000.

We ran in a group around the few corners back to the dorms and made it inside, puffing. We lit a few kerosene lamps and sat back down in a circle. “Wait, where are Ruff and Tuff?” Fishlegs asked,

“They were meant to be diverting the zombie-“ Flynn began, but he stopped short. We turned to see two zombies standing at the door. They were the twins.  

 

 

 

 

 


	6. Elsa POV

We all yelped in perfect unison at the sight of the twins, well what used to be them. Everyone made an instinctive reach for their weapons I froze them in their tracks, not wanting to kill anyone. “Ugh, Elsa!” I heard Tuff yelp.

“Yeah, it’s cold.” Ruff stumbled a little, off balance from having her feet encased in ice.

“Serves you right.” Said Fishlegs shakily.

“Fishlegs, that’s a little harsh,” Hiccup interrupted, stepping between them and the twins, “the question is; why would you do that?”

“Come on, _Hiccup_ , it was just a bit of fun.” Moaned Ruff, I heard Jack giggle a little. I slapped him over the head,

“Sorry.” He mumbled, still fighting a laugh. I could see that Flynn and Snotlout were doing the same thing.

“I trust you led the zombies off?” asked Anna, the twins nodded. I melted the ice and we all sat back down in our circle, the drinks in the middle.

Jack and I took some whisky and drank it from Dixie cups, first class stile. It was the smoothest whiskey I had ever had, the other one was a cheap high school cheat; it was terrible. I took a moment to savour the vanilla taste and gulped it down, “Well chosen, Jack.” I said, giving him a kiss on the check.

“Why thank you, Ma’am,” He grinned sheepishly, “I think this one was around a $1000.”

“Tastes like it.” I took another sip, I tried to take the flavour in as much as I could.

Looking across the circle, I could tell the bottle of beer the Twins and Snotlout was already getting to them, Ruff was mumbling things about Eret being perfect. Flynn and Rapunzel were pretending to be fancy by sharing a bottle of pink champagne. Anna and Merida were being very traditional by trying the different wines. Hiccup and Astrid were really keen on trying the scotch, so they did. Fishlegs however looked uncomfortable and took a coke.

Soon enough Ruff, Tuff, Snotlout, Flynn and Merida had pretty much fallen asleep on the floor. Anna and Rapunzel were laughing like five-year-olds. Fishlegs had retired from the alcohol-induced craziness to keep watch. Hiccup, Astrid, Jack and I were the only ones who had had some and managed not to get drunk, we sat and stared at the pile of empty bottles in the centre, our silence filled by Anna and Rapunzel’s slurred laughter. I was just thankful no one was sick, I didn’t want to jinx it because morning wasn’t here yet.

I checked my watch, half past three in the morning, I was beginning to fall asleep just sitting up. “I’m going to be radical,” I stood up like a toddler after being hit on the head, rubbing my eyes and stretching, “and going to go to bed.” I finished,

“I’m going to stay up, Fishlegs needs a break. Don’t need sleep anyway.”

I could see that, he was as lively as ever, it almost was like he hadn’t have half a bottle of whiskey and a beer. “I think we should go to bed, too.” Hiccup said, getting up and taking Astrid’s hand to help her up.

“What about the others? Should we wake them up and get them into bed?”

“Let’s just let them sleep on the floor, it could get messy if we wake them up,” Hiccup suggested, “However we should help the two giggling girls up,” He gestured to Anna and Rapunzel, who were just pulling weird faces at one another.

I picked Anna up from under the shoulders, “Oh hey, sister!” she slurred, “Ya know what I wanna do?” she leant on my shoulder.

“What?” I sighed, I just wanted to go to bed.

“Do you wanna build a snowman?” she asked, “You know, like when we were kids?”

“Oh yes! Let’s do that!” Said Rapunzel, leaning on Astrid behind us.

I shook my head, “Nope, you two need to go to bed.”

“Please?” they begged,

“Fine, one snowman and then bed. Promise?” they nodded eagerly and we walked outside into the crisp clean air of late winter.

“We’re building a snowman!” Rapunzel cheered, grabbing a puzzled looking Jack and Fishlegs from the tree they were sitting at.

“Come on, do the magic!” Anna encouraged, she now was acting like her three-year-old-self. It scared me, suddenly I remember the accident when I accidentally got her in the head and she nearly died. One of the last things I wanted to happen was for that to happen again, I looked at the streak of white in Anna’s hair.

“Maybe we shouldn’t.” I said quietly, half-wishing she wouldn’t hear me.

“Why not?” she moaned. I couldn’t answer her, as much as I wanted to.

“Yeah, why not?” Rapunzel asked, a little less harshly. I shook my bad feelings off and held my hands opposite to one another and a ball of swirling ice appeared as it always did.

“Ready?” I asked, smiling.

They nodded eagerly and I threw it into the air. It exploded in a burst of flurries and diamonds that rained down around us. It chased the dark away and left us in a shower of light. Jack made a few small animals out of ice and made them run around the fallen snow. Toothless rolled around like an oversized kitten in the snow and sneezed happily.

The girls squealed and Hiccup and Astrid stood off to the side, holding hands, just enjoying the magic snow. “Pretty, isn’t it?” asked Jack’s voice from behind me.

“Yeah.” I rested my head on his shoulder. We just stood there, watching the snow and I again started to drift in and out of sleep. I wanted to stay up with Jack all night, but I couldn’t stay awake. Fishlegs had gone to bed a few hours ago and so had everyone else.

Jack being the awesome guy he is, went inside to get my sleeping bag and a rug to lie on. I climbed into the bag and fell asleep almost immediately, too tired to stare at the stars.

I woke up to someone tapping me on the nose, I opened my eyes groggily and looked up at the silhouette of Jack. I couldn’t see his face with the bright clouds behind him. “What time is it?” I asked, beginning to sit up.

“About seven, everyone except Hiccup, Astrid, Fishlegs and Toothless is hung over.”

“I can’t imagine why.” I grumbled.


	7. Hiccup

Everything was getting on my nerves, I could not stand to not have everyone accounted for all the time. I always felt like I was being watched by someone. Sometimes, I’d hear a small noise and nearly jump out of my skin. Sleeping that night was a nightmare, I couldn’t lie still, barely sleeping at all.

 I’d get lost in thought and stare off to the distance, it was usually Astrid or Merida who snapped me out of them by saying ‘Is something wrong? You look worried’ or the ‘you look really sad’ and I’d say ‘really? I was just thinking’ and it was true. Well, sort of, my mind kept on wandering to the aircrafts that I had found in the hanger and why Gobber was so secretive about it. I had barely slept for the past three days and I was reluctant to close my eyes as it were. Despite Jack’s teasing about the rings under my eyes.

Raiding the supermarket was fun…. Not. The only things that were left were those that were heavily loaded with salt and preservatives, and Twinkies no surprises there, of all the things to survive years sitting in a supermarket, it was the Twinkies.

Yes, there were some farms on Berk, but why not try and branch out on our diets? You know; less potatoes, not that I didn’t like potatoes, I was perfectly content living on them. The more organic products had all expired and were inedible long since, a lot of it had decomposed and it did not smell nice.

As predicted, there were a couple of zombies in the shop, I wondered if preservatives were a suitable component to their diet considering what might be in them. I was sure that they would make me feel sick after living on a completely organic diet for a few years.

“I’ll take this one,” said Jack, picking up a cheap banjo from a stand and putting the strap over his shoulder and played ‘duelling banjos’. After a few reluctant notes, a fat, bloody faced zombie emerged from the aisles and started jogging toward us, he must be hungry too. “Giiiiit suuuummmmm.” Said Jack, lifting the banjo over his head and smacked the zombie so hard in the face that the corpses’ face and the banjo both broke beyond repair.

After a few moments of silence and staring at the corpse, Jack said “This one really let himself go.”

“Mmmm.” I agreed, nodding solemnly.

The next hour was spent raiding the supermarket with Astrid and Elsa, Astrid and I took a trolley and Jack and Elsa did the same. At the start, Jack climbed into his trolley and Elsa pushed him through the aisles as he collected several decent looking groceries from the shelves.

Being the more reasonable couple, Astrid and I acted like normal people and just picked out whatever looked edible (which wasn’t a great amount).

When we had finished, we had about ten trolleys. It wasn’t as much as Dad was probably expecting, but it was all that was left. It looked like we’d have to expand our crops… again. We loaded Bertha up with the groceries and set off back to the dorms.

We got back at around midday to find it completely empty, “YO FLYNN!”  Jack yelled, eerie silence was all that answered him.

“Toothless?” I yelled, trying to keep my cool. Everyone called out the team’s names but there was no reply each time. I was beginning to panic, where were they? Are they all right? Should have taken a walkie talkie. As if I needed any more to worry about. we began to search the woods that surrounded the dorms.

I stepped on a twig and made a loud crack. Damn, given myself away, so much for stealth. I froze in my tracks and listened around me and tried to reach out my senses for anyone that might be watching, or zombies, Eret? Drago?

There was another crack of a snapping twig, it was to my left, about 10 metres. I slowly swivelled my head to look in the direction from which it came, I let out an enormous sigh as I saw a lost and worried looking Toothless.

“Bud!” I exclaimed, and was answered with a huge slobbery lick to the face. “Thanks, where is everyone?”

Toothless looked a little ashamed and started to trot off, sniffing the ground for a sign of a trail or something. Toothless did have an amazing sense of smell, but this time it didn’t seem to work properly.

“Did someone take them?” I asked him. Beginning to wish that I did have the mutant power of being able to talk to animals.

He looked up at me, the answer was clear in his big green eyes. _Yes._

I let out an enormous sigh, unable to pin point a specific feeling. Worry? Fear? Panic? I didn’t know, but Toothless really seemed to be beating himself up about it, as if he felt like it was all his fault and had he gotten there in time, could have stopped any of this from happening.

“Don’t worry,” I said, patting him on the head, “it isn’t your fault.”

He didn’t seem convinced at all. I felt a small drop of cold on my head, it was trying to rain. We decided to head back to the dorm where the others were waiting for me. Astrid gave toothless a big hug when she saw that he was all right- as all right as a dragon with half a tail left can be.

“Well at least one of them is here.” Jack said bitterly,

“What does that mean?” I asked,

“You know exactly what I mean, Hic. It’s always about you and your precious dragon why is _he_ the only one left, our friends could be in big and unthinkable trouble _right now._ ” I was shocked, I always knew Jack to be an eternal optimist, always looking on the bright-side and he would be glad that one of the crew was still here.

Toothless looked even sadder than before. We stood in silence, consumed with worry. The dorm still had everyone’s stuff inside it, as if they had just vanished into thin air. But they hadn’t, someone had taken our friends and Thor knows who. I only had one guess.

“We should get back to Berk, the cars are all gone and all we have is Bertha.” Astrid said, “If Stoick asks, we never went to the liquor store and so on.”

“Why not?” Elsa asked, then I got it.

“Maybe whoever took them put some kind of sedative in the drinks that we took last night and if someone had too much they would doze off.”

“What about Fishlegs?” Astrid asked, “He didn’t have anything.”

“He may have wanted to fight back and was taken too.”

Jack, who was fiddling with a pocket knife of Flynn’s, threw it into the dirt angrily. “Well that’s just brilliant, isn’t it? Let’s go home.”

We packed up all the stuff and helped Toothless onto the back of the army truck and set off for Berk, we were supposed to raid more markets, but we didn’t have the time or people for that.

No music, no talking and no quips. We were just squashed together in the cabin in a tense silence. At about mid-afternoon I went on the back of the truck to sit with Toothless, I was getting claustrophobic. I sat on the wheat bags and watched the road zip by beneath us. Hypnotised by the constant movement until I fell into a deep and uneasy sleep. Go figure, I was on the back of a truck that was speeding through the country at about 120 kilometres per hour.

I woke up when it was just beginning to get dark and we had almost arrived in Berk. We hadn’t seemed to run into Eret or any trouble. Which I was pleased about, Jack seemed more than ready to knock some heads off.

Zombies, fine.

People, not so much.

With each passing moment I was getting more and more restless about what Dad was going to say, I should’ve just jumped off of the back of the truck and spent the rest of my life in the wilderness right there and then if I had known what was coming.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hello dear readers, i am so sorry that i haven't updated for a LONG TIME. it wasn't that i had run into a block or anything it was a case of just not having the time or energy to write. 
> 
> anyway, i hope this chapter began to add more interest and plot to the story and i will start the next one ASAP
> 
> thanks!


	8. RAPUNZEL'S POV

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry for the wait (again) rather busy.... but here's the next chapter

I was staring straight ahead, well at least I felt like I was. It was so dark, I may as well have my eyes closed. A sudden jolt told me that I was in the back of a truck I fell onto the floor I realised that I had a strip of duct tape stuck over my mouth. How did I not notice that before? The impact between me and the floor of the truck grazed my shoulder and pain erupted through my right arm.

All I wanted was to scream and get out, I could barely move and I felt completely alone until I felt a foot twitch beneath me. A brief shock of adrenaline shot through me, I sat bolt upright and scrambled away from it and toward the head of the truck. I noticed a few more figures in the dark as I scrambled to the wall and sat up against it, wishing that I could become a shadow in the ever present dark. I felt a small stream of blood tickle its’ way down my spine, I ripped off the duct tape with my uninjured arm and gasped for air.

I tried everything I could to calm down, but nothing worked. All that was left to do was sit there, free of thought and trembled.

I didn’t know how long I was sitting there, could have been a day, maybe less. Until the back doors of finally burst open to a few masked figures that charged inside. I pretended to be unconscious, which was hard as they picked me up and carried me as carefully as they would with a sack of potatoes. Something like a rock dug into my stomach when I hit the ground, I desperately fought the urge to yell in pain and kept my eyes closed tightly so they wouldn’t water.

“With some luck, we should be ready for the boss come daybreak.” Said a familiar voice, I felt my blood run cold with terrified adrenaline, Eret, that little prick.

“Yes sir.” Another voice answered and I heard their footsteps walk away, but others could be heard close by. I began to wonder why they had taken us out of the truck anyway. If they were waiting for a while they would have just left us in there, I figured, dawn must not be far away. My hope and little bit of optimism didn’t change with the thought. Who was this ‘Drago’ or ‘Boss’, if he was powerful and scary enough to make even people like Eret fall in line, he must be pretty bad. Still, Hiccup said that people can always be reasoned with, I felt a bit of responsibility fall upon my shoulders at the thought that I might have to be the one reasoning with this oh so powerful man. I wasn’t about to let the twins try.

The men roughly lifted us up again, one hefted me over their shoulders like a backpack with my restrained arms around his neck my hair had fallen out of its ponytail and was going everywhere and catching on things; it hurt like hell. I dared not to open my eyes even a fraction of a millimetre and carried us inside somewhere. wasn’t any sort of vehicle or something but it felt underground like a bunker or somewhere where they kept people that they weren’t going to need in very good shape or at all. Like a prison cell maybe. I turned out to be completely right, which I wasn’t exactly happy with, it was one of the few times that I hoped I would be wrong.

“What’s with all this _hair?”_ a man who was carrying me asked, “I may as well cut it off since it’s being such a pain.”

I wanted to scream at him not to, but caught myself.

“No.” the one carrying me answered, “Don’t harm them or lay a finger on any of them _yet_. We still have to see what Drago will want to do with them, we have our direct orders which are meant to be followed.”

“Awww,” he groaned, “just a trim?”

“No, I’m not about to risk being thrown out _there_ for the sake of some whiny looking girl’s hair length and how it annoys _you_ of all people. Now shut your screaming howler and get back to work.”

While I appreciated his resistance to anyone cutting my hair I was a little offended that he’d called me ‘whiny’, it was a little unnecessary. I was tossed onto a cement floor and heard a barred door close straight afterward. There were several other tossing of friends and closing of doors before they left and exited the area with the clang of a larger metal door that sealed us off from everyone.  

Once I was absolutely sure that they were all gone I slowly got to my feet and stood up. a wave of dizziness greeted me when I attempted to get my balance and nearly caused me to fall onto my butt. I steadied myself and looked out and through the bars.

The chamber was circular and was lined with cell doors exactly like mine and behind them were all of my friends, still unconscious. It was enough to give me nightmares. I counted 12 filled cells, Hiccup, Jack, Elsa and Astrid must still be out there with Toothless. Maybe even coming for us or even getting reinforcements, the thing was that I had no idea what they were planning, I guessed the protocol was head straight back to Berk, it was what I would’ve done in their situation anyway and Hiccup and I could seemed to think rather similarly despite our differences.

“Hey!” I hissed, “Anyone?”

No one stirred, they still must be out. I was worried if any of them were badly injured, if they were, I couldn’t help for sure. It just added to my peaking anxiety levels. Each minute they were silent was worse than the last.

I sat on the makeshift ‘bed’ on the floor, which was a rotting yoga mat and blanket, I rested my head back on the wall. I tried not to sob, I was so confused, there was no clear reason why we were kidnapped and what for and what they were going to do to us. I tried to think about something else, like books and drawing, but it was no use.

Ten minutes, half an hour, forty five passed, before I heard the person in the cell next to me stir.

“For the last time, my nose doesn’t look like that! They’re just being mean now.” Flynn said with a start, like he was waking up from a dream. I stifled a laugh. People always made fun of his nose for some reason.

“Flynn!” I gasped and got up, I tried to look into his cell by poking my face between the bars, it was no use.

“Rapunzel?” he asked, “What the fuck is going on?”

“I-I’m not sure.”

“Well we’ve probably been kidnapped, Eret?”

“You never cease to surprise me.”

“Huh, what a wild guess.” He chuckled to himself.

We heard Ruffnut groan from the other side of the chamber in her cell.

“Awh,” she groaned, “I’m too pretty for jail.”

Tuff scoffed from the cell next to her, “Who told you that?” The others were all waking up with groans and tired voices. Soon, everyone was awake.

“Will you two shut up?” asked Fishlegs, “One, I don’t like to be woken up by you two and secondly, someone might be right outside that cast iron door or something.”

“Will you stop being so paranoid?” sneered Snotlout and did a little impression of Fishleg’s voice and pouted.

Someone was banging on their cell door, I tried to see but couldn’t, it was obviously next to Flynn’s and even more plainly Merida.

“Ahh that gammy bastard!” she exclaimed with a kick, “the minute I see ‘im, I’m gonna knock ‘im over tha head with mah bow!”

“What bow?” Flynn asked, “They took it.”

Neither he nor I could see but we could feel Merida’s swordlike glare. A moment of silence passed and she carried on kicking the door.

“So, who’s going to help us if anyone?” Anna asked casually over the kicking,

“Not likely anyone among us.” Fishlegs answered,

“Where’s Elsa and Jack the others?”

“Not among us.” I answered.

“Well, that’s fantastic.” Anna said, her voice stale with sarcasm, “For all we know they could’ve been taken too and are far worse off or something, you know.”

The thought hadn’t occurred to me yet, it sent a stab of fear down my back. “How could they have been?” I asked, “They have Toothless and are like super icy-magical and stuff, they would have gotten away easily.”

“Fair point.” She said, cocking her head to the side like a shrug or maybe a nod, I couldn’t tell.

“So what do we do now?” Snotlout asked, finally chiming into something important with a good question.

“Sit tight?” I suggested, “I’m throwing it wide open to the group here, but maybe stick it through, meet this Drago and see what we’re up against.”

“Not trying to be the bearer of bad ideas.” Merida said with another kick, “But wha’ happens if he decides to get rid o’ us right on tha spot?”

I couldn’t answer, as awful as the thought was, it was a fair question. What _would_ happen then? Before anyone could answer the chamber door opened with a deafening sound and Merida finally stopped her kicking.

A group of people entered the area, all armed to the teeth, led by a man that was almost seven feet tall and carried an aura that would scare a dragon into obeying him. His hair was in long dark dreadlocks and he had a beard that ran along his jaw and was also braided. He had a metal arm to his left that hung by his side like a deadly claw. He cast a shadow over the room and made me shrink back into myself, I could see why his men were so afraid and willing to obey his orders immediately.

We all knew who he was immediately, Drago.


End file.
